Instructions for authors

Guidelines for Submission of Articles to the West of England Medical Journal

The Editorial Board of the West of England Medical Journal will consider manuscripts containing original material if neither the article nor any part of its essential substance, tables, or figures has been or will be published before appearing in theWEMJ. Abstracts from meetings and press reports are an exception to this rule.

Please submit papers for publication to the editor: paulrgoddard@me.com

The guidelines are drawn up in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” which should be studied for further ethical consideration.

Authorship

In order for a person to be given credit for authorship they should have significant input and contribution including

Design of study and analysis of data

Drafting and revision of the article

Final approval of the version to be published.

Assurances

Where applicable it must be recorded on the submission that relevant ethical committee approval has been granted.

Any conflict of interest should be notified in the covering letter to the West of England Medical Journal.

Electronic Submission

Papers are only accepted in electronic form, either by e-mail or on CD or memory stick.

All text, figure legends and tables should be in one double-spaced electronic document, preferably word doc, docx or pages.

Text should also be submitted separately with the following parameters:

Main Heading: Times New Roman, Bold 24 point

Authors: Times 12 point regular

Paragraph headings: Trebuchet MS 14 Bold

Main body of text: Trebuchet MS 13 regular

References: Times regular 9 point

In addition Figures should be submitted as separate JPEG files at a minimum of 300 pixels per sq inch. The figure files must be named in accordance with figure legends in the word document but figure legends should not be included on the actual figure. Arrows should be imbedded in the JPEG image if required.

Photographs of patients must either be anonymised or accompanied by written permission from the patient (or parent/guardian if a minor).

References should be double-spaced and numbered consecutively as they are cited. All authors should be listed if 6 or less but when there are seven or more list the first three followed by et al